Giants T-Ball revisited

Every now and then I'll look through my shots and find something I feel needs something special done to it and since I'm trying to get better at composites that's what I did.  I took one of my shots from my most recent shoot "Giants T-Ball" and played with it a bit.

I will admit I cheated as I purchased this background from someone and only really had to add the little guy, but with some adjustments and tweaks this is what I came up with.

Giants T-ball

I was recently hired to cover a t-ball game :) 

I love capturing the action, intensity, and emotion of athletes when shooting sports, but I miss the innocence of the little ones when they play sports.  It's really a whole different method and thought process when covering kids at this age.  Although there is action, its a different type of action, but instead of the action being the priority when shooting kids this age the focus is on their personality and expressions.  Simply put, it's all about capturing kids just being kids.

So with this post its all about me going back to my roots where I really began my sports photography.  "T-Ball".

Enjoy the shots and relive your childhood.

Lakewood Blue Little League Baseball

Went out this last Sunday and shot some baseball. A friend of the family's son is playing in a local winter league and the wife and I decided to go and watch a game, but of course I brought my camera just in case. As it tuned out the coach of the team has a son the the football team I shoot and after talking a short while I had permission to shoot some baseball. You may ask why, well why not, I love to shoot and it was a great day to be out enjoying what I love.

Below are my favorites from the game.

Are you ready for some T-Ball

It has been a very long time since I've photographed t-ball, and boy did I miss it. This is my roots, this is where I began photographing sports action and have been away from it for far too long.

I was talking to a good friend of mine, who photograph's sports action at the college level in the New York area and t-ball came up. Probably because I just got back from taking these pictures. Any hoot, part of the conversation went towards the lack of action at this level and age and let's face it, that's why most people get into photographing sports action, for the "ACTION". Well taking these shots really brought back some great memories and reminded me as to why I started shooting sports in the first place, for these little guys. And of course that goes for the little girls as well.

Now to the pictures. This young man is my nephew, well maybe not biologically, but his dad and I have been friends since the first grade and his kids call me uncle as my do him. So I look at them and him as part of my family. So once I found out he was playing t-ball I found out when he was playing and went out to get some shots of him.

So with all of that said, let me introduce "Daniel" to you.

I really liked both of the following shots for different reasons and really couldn't pick a favorite, so I'm posting both.

Can you say "Smile"?

Yankee Baseball

The vast majority of my work with baseball is from parents requesting me to capture their child in action during a game. This request was made by the parents of the two kids you see pictured below. When I'm asked to shoot these kids I will try to capture them in various stages of the game and types of action. I will also try for some personal candid shots.

When I'm hired for these types of jobs I make sure the parents understand the amount and quality of the action shots I obtain depend solely on the players involvement in the game and how much action they are actually involved in. Additional a players position will and can affect what type of shots I can obtain.

Both of these kids pitched during the game and the first also catched. During this game I positioned myself around the dugouts on both the first and third base side. When taking the direct shots of the pitchers I positioned myself behind the catcher and slightly to the side.

I used both my 300 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8. My cameras were set to aperture priority with an ISO ranging from 500 - 100, depending on how much cloud cover I had at the time.

Below you'll find various shots of each of these kids.

I really liked the look of the picture above and felt it was a great candiate for some playing with Lucis Arts.